Theory: The Cause and Impact of the Breaking; with possible explanations for the Pact, Hardhome's destruction, and the Others' return

[Maester of Valyria]

The Cause and Impact of the Breaking; with possible explanations for the Pact, Hardhome, and the Others' return

(click here to read the first draft of this theory)

EDIT: I apologise for the slightly weird typeface and paragraph spacing here: I copied and pasted the text from a document and I was unable to change these to forum-default while retaining format. I hope this doesn't pose any problems.

 

 @AlaskanSandman @leonardof

 

I believe that it was the Children of the Forest and their war with the First Men that devastated civilisations the world over. Over time, the legends of this event became corrupted, and powers were attributed to the Children that they do not truly possess.

We are told several times that the Children, in an attempt to stem the flood of invading First Men into Westeros, called down the Hammer of the Waters to shatter the Arm of Dorne. Sometime later, they did the same (unsuccessfully this time) at the Neck, to try and preserve the North from the humans.

However, we are never actually told how the Hammer accomplished this. Did the waves rise up and over the Arm, battering away at it until there were only islands left? Did the ground fall away beneath the First Men's feet and plunge into the sea? Did the Children merely catalyse the natural processes of erosion and weathering, and the Breaking actually took place over decades or centuries? I believe many fans (including, until recently, myself) opted for a generic sea level rise, but without giving any thought to the effects such a rise would have on the rest of the world. A sea rise restricted to just the Arm is ridiculous: where is all that water and energy going to go afterwards? No, the increase in sea levels must have been worldwide, and that presents a whole host of other problems.

A sea level rise sufficient to drown a land bridge would be catastrophic for civilisations the world over. Considering that almost all densely populated settlements are by the sea, you can imagine the effects even a modest rise in sea levels would have. Throw into the mix the disruption to trade and communications, the fear and confusion, the climatic impacts and the inevitable destruction of records by floods or panic, and you've got yourself a civilisation-shattering disaster.

We can see the evidence for such an inundation everywhere. Below is just some of what you can find if you examine the maps and text carefully:

• ·      The vanished civilisation of the Thousand Isles, with the strange idols and monuments that rise from the sea at low tide. Also, the strange inhabitants' petrifying fear of the sea.

 

Quote

  ...believed by some to be the last remnants of a drowned kingdom whose towns and towers were submerged beneath the rising seas many thousands of years ago.

 

If that doesn't scream 'Big Flood' then I don't know what does.

 

• ·      The positioning and seeming congruency (both between themselves and the mainland) of islands, possibly hinting at larger landmasses being connected in the past. Examples include:
• ·      the various islands south of Ib,
• ·      Skagos and the Bay of Seals,
• ·      the Iron Islands looking suspiciously like submerged peaks of a larger landmass (perhaps once connected to the mainland),
• ·      the possibility of a large land bridge connecting Sothoryos and Yi Ti via the two Moraqs et al. Additional evidence for the latter is that basilisks are found in the jungles of both Yi Ti and Sothoryos, which is a strong indicator that the two regions were connected in the past.

 

• ·      Legends of a huge disaster among all cultures in the distant past. While lots of people assume these pertain to the Long Night (and many certainly do), remember that the Arm was broken and the sea risen long before that.

 

• ·      Remnants of a vanished, apex civilisation the world over (I'm thinking GeoDawnians, or variations thereof depending on what theory you subscribe to). Seeing as all the confirmed sites of black stone are in coastal regions (except Yeen, which lies in hostile territory and may easily have fallen when cut off from outside help), one may surmise that the abrupt floods devastated their way of life. Even if they managed to recover from this disaster, they may have been weakened sufficiently that they finally crumpled when the Long Night arrived, leaving a power vacuum that the YiTish, and later the Valyrians, filled.

 

• ·      The way that much of the Far East seems to be drying out (the Great Sand Sea, the Shrinking Sea, the Dry Deep, rivers that seem to lead nowhere, etc, the Jogos Nhai tales of the Dry Times). This could be occurring due to dramatically changed sea currents from the warm Summer Sea connecting with the cold Shivering Sea, when the Arm broke. This is not as much evidence for my main assertion, as being the proof of concept that the Breaking had global implications. For more reading on this, I recommend user @DominusNovus' excellent topic 'On Asshai, Rivers, and Oceans' (started 14 Sep 2015), which gave me the original idea for this piece of evidence. @Lord Vance II's topic 'The Broken Arm and Global Climate Change' (26^th February 2016) also makes for interesting reading.

 

•       The Summer Isles being populated, despite the ancient history of the islands telling us that they didn't have any culture of sailing 'beyond the sight of their own shores'. While it is ridiculous to believe that the seas were low enough to allow people to walk from Sothoryos to the Isles, I think it's plausible that small, now-submerged islands (of which Naath is the only specimen still above-water) were originally between the two, and that the settlers of the Isles went island-hopping until they reached Jhala and Omboru. This is supported by seemingly similar vegetation across the Summer Isles and Sothoryos, but a lack of dangerous massive animals on the islands: seeds can blow in the wind; basilisks cannot, and wyverns are (presumably, given the location of Wyvern Point) confined to the eastern part of Sothoryos.

   

• ·      All traces of human habitation in the now-submerged areas will have been wiped from existence by thousands of years under the sea. This, along with the level of technology in Planetos, accounts for the lack of discovered ruins etc under the sea. Even if there were ruins in the shallows (such as the outline of a house) there's no guarantee it would be recognised for what it was. Similarly the destruction of records by time, human action or the floods themselves has wiped all direct knowledge of the floods from the history books.

 

• ·      As for the Arm itself, the Stepstones being above-water while the majority of the causeway was submerged makes sense once you consider that if the Stepstones are sufficiently large to be able to hide fleets of pirate ships, then they must be of a higher elevation than the norm. Moreover, if the Arm was composed mainly of sand or soft rock, then it wouldn't take much flooding to wash this away, leaving the rocky islands behind. I'd also point out that we don't know for sure if the Arm didn't reappear during the Long Night, when water was locked into the ice caps (read on for more).

 

• ·      The seeming congruency of the coastlines either side of the two coasts of the southern Narrow Sea. Yandel tells us that the Sea of Dorne was once landlocked, and that it was eventually flooded by the Narrow Sea, during 'the Song of the Sea'. Now, assuming that the landlocked sea was already in existence, then that's a sizeable (the current Sea of Dorne, and based on geography probably the Sea of Myrth as well; possibly more) body of water already waiting to be connected to the main oceans. Add in the fact that a nearby coastal region of Essos is called the Flatlands, and you've got a wide Narrow Sea.

 

• ·      Many large rivers or inlets, including the Saltspear, the Bay of Crabs (with the Quiet Isle, possibly a partially submerged hilltop?) and the beginning of the White Knife have some of the characteristics of a ria, a feature associated with sea level rises. There are other possible examples the world over but I thought those were the best three.

   

Now you might think that the Children would never destroy so much of the land which they cherish and protect. However with their entire civilisation at stake, the First Men committing genocide every time they uprooted a weirwood (damaging the 'weirnet'), and the knowledge that the humans would uproot every tree in sight given half the chance, I think that it's plausible that they would in fact sacrifice some of the land to save their civilisation from total destruction.

I would speculate that the Breaking of the Arm and the (attempted) snapping of the Neck, occurred simultaneously, and that over time the legends became distorted to report otherwise. We could wonder all day about why the Neck didn't fully submerge, but it may have been because of its higher position above sea level, it's width (it may have been much wider in the past), or some other reason. I believe that the phrase 'Hammer of the Waters' is a corruption of the original, which reads 'The Hammer was the Waters': the waters rose and washed (smashed) away the land. Indeed the very word 'Hammer' may be a human addition: the Children use no tools, and some singer may have anthropomorphised the magic.

We know that the Children were losing the war against the First Men, and the histories tell us that when the Children sued for peace the humans agreed, being tired of war. Now I'm stretching here, but is it that likely that so many warlike kingdoms would all suddenly want to be besties with the inhuman race that they've been fighting against the past few forevers? Is that human nature?

Maybe. This is fantasy after all. But the most effective way of getting an enemy to agree to peace is to display overwhelming power. And I think that's what the Children did: flood huge swathes of coastline, completely destroying the route the First Men took to Westeros in the progress, with the unspoken threat (true or not) that they can do so again. That takes negotiating from a position of strength to a whole new level. This is why the Children broke the Arm seemingly so late in the day: only when they realised that they could not win the war through conventional means did they decide to shock the humans into submission, at the cost of deluging vast stretches of coastline.

After this colossal display of power, is it any wonder that the First Men agreed to peace, and later adopted the Children's religion?

 

But how, I hear you ask, how did the Children cause this huge sea level rise? Well, this is my favourite bit of the theory, although I must give  @Free Northman Reborn the credit for first drawing it to my attention.

Volcanoes. Specifically, a supervolcano, hiding under the northern polar ice cap. The Children performed some earth magics to make that volcano begin erupting. The resulting infusion of heat under the ice cap melted a significant amount of sea ice and led to an increase in the temperature of the oceans globally (thanks to sea currents). This would result in thermal expansion. Boom: melting ice + expanding water = global sea level change.

Now you're first reaction upon reading the word 'supervolcano' may be to sigh and close this page. But please, a moment more. Geothermal activity is an established phenomenon in Planetos, with Dragonstone, the Fourteen Flames, and the Winterfell hot springs being the most obvious examples. However, a close examination will reveal more. Marahai in the Jade Sea is definitely a volcanic island (according to the Worldbook), and although it's not relevant to my discussion it proves how volcanoes can pop up all over the place in this world.

Meanwhile, in the North we have the aforementioned Winterfell springs, Moat Cailin's basalt (an igneous rock which must have been mined somewhere), mountainous Skagos (you can ignore that one if you want: it may or may not be a volcanic island), Thenn (which is almost certainly geothermally heated, leading me to believe that the whole Frostfangs mountain range is volcanic), and even Hardhome (we'll get onto that later; bear with me). And the Children of the Forest have to be getting their dragonglass from somewhere...

On top of this, in the extreme Far North we have lakes. Liquid water lakes. The only conceivable way those bodies of water could remain unfrozen that far north is geothermal activity. We also have legends of a 'warm summer sea' locked deep within the White Waste. Seeing as we are now approaching the stage where the land may be giving way to the polar ice cap, I think you can see where I'm going with this.

A volcano underneath the polar ice cap, melting sea ice and keeping sea levels higher than otherwise. You may think this implausible but a Yellowstone-type volcano gradually giving out lava and heat (instead of exploding all at once) could in fact raise sea levels significantly, and carry on doing so for thousands of years.

As for the Children's ability to do this, they are those who sing the song of the earth, and volcanoes are simply breaches in the earth which allow the passage of magma to the surface. It is strongly hinted that the Faceless Men had something to do with the eruption of the Fourteen Flames that caused the Doom of Valyria: I very much doubt that the Faceless Men have powers over the earth that exceed those of the Children when they were at their apex (now the Children are a dying race, it may well be a different matter). Even if it wasn't the Faceless Men, the Valyrian's spells that tamed the Flames prove how magic can be used to influence volcanoes.

Please note that I'm not saying that the Children formed the volcano (as in summoned the magma to the surface, or ripped open the planet's crust), but rather that they forced/allowed/prompted a volcano that already existed to erupt. This fits better both with what we know of the Children's nature (that is, always to utilise nature) and the nature of magic in GRRM's world: never too powerful and always 'realistic'. You may laugh but utilising a pre-existing volcano is much simpler than creating a new one from scratch.

 

Hardhome

And now, as promised: Hardhome. The destruction of the True North's only city is still a source of mystery, with no single accepted cause. I hope to postulate one now. Yep, you guessed it: volcano.

What we do know about the city's destruction is not consistent with destruction by other humans, be it slavers or Skagosi. We are told:

 

Quote

Hardhome had been halfway toward becoming a town, the only true town north of the Wall, until the night six hundred years ago when hell had swallowed it. Its people had been carried off into slavery or slaughtered for meat, depending on which version of the tale you believed, their homes and halls consumed in a conflagration that burned so hot that watchers on the Wall far to the south had thought the sun was rising in the north. Afterward ashes rained down on haunted forest and Shivering Sea alike for almost half a year. Traders reported finding only nightmarish devastation where Hardhome had stood, a landscape of charred trees and burned bones, waters choked with swollen corpses, blood-chilling shrieks echoing from the cave mouths that pocked the great cliff that loomed above the settlement.

I'm going to go through the above underlined sections individually:

·      conflagration that burned so hot that watchers on the Wall far to the south had thought the sun was rising in the north – Man-made fires two hundred miles (using the Wall as a yardstick) away from you do not light up the whole sky so bright you mistake it for day. However a volcano spewing out molten lava high into the atmosphere might well do so (see this picture).

·      ashes rained down on haunted forest and Shivering Sea alike for almost half a year – Again, a volcano is the most logical cause of huge quantities of ash falling over huge swathes of land. If the Hardhome volcano had continued to erupt it may well have produced massive amounts of ash and debris over a period of months.

·      landscape of charred trees – Self explanatory really: just look at this picture from the aftermath of the Mt St Helens eruption.

·      blood-chilling shrieks echoing from the cave mouths that pocked the great cliff that loomed above the settlement – This is the really juicy one. Lava caves are formed by, well, lava, and I think it's plausible that the screaming caves are actually lava caves, with the screams being caused by the wind in the deep tunnels, and that the great cliff is actually the side of a volcano. And that use of the word 'loomed' seems very foreboding to me…

 

Long story short: the destruction of Hardhome was due to a volcanic eruption. But why did this volcano erupt? I can think of a few possible reasons:

1.    It just did. Not everything has to be special; maybe the volcano just happened to go off that day? I find this explanation a bit unsatisfactory for obvious reasons.

2.    The Faceless Men did it as a rehearsal for the Doom of Valyria. I don't like this explanation at all, but I thought I'd include it anyway. Evidence against it includes the 200 year gap between Hardhome and the Doom, a complete lack of evidence that the Faceless Men have an interest north of the Wall (they don't even seem to know about skinchanging) and that the assassins have no grudge against the Free Folk. Apart from anything else, we still don't know for sure if the Faceless Men did cause the Doom.

3.    The Others did it in order to cool the globe by injecting ash and debris into the atmosphere and blocking out sunlight (we don't know if this worked or not; presumably if it did it wasn't very effective). I don't believe this, but more on this all later…

4.    My preferred explanation: the Children did it. It's very easy to see why the Children would have an interest in keeping the humans who lived beyond the Wall below a certain societal and technological level. When the wildlings started to abandon their wild ways and organise themselves into a 'proper' society, this posed a serious threat to the already weakened Children. So they used the fact that the new human city was nearby a volcano, and BOOM!!! No more organised human society to menace the Children of the Forest.

 

If true, this would have serious implications for the Children's possible motives and ambitions. Bran may need to watch himself here...and this gives us a nice segue to the final section of this essay.

 

The Others' Return

 

The main stumbling block with this section is the controversy over whether the Others are a natural race or were created by another. The below conjecture hinges on them being natural, so if you don't believe that then you may stop reading here. Or not, your choice. I also make a few not-unreasonable assumptions about the Others, which quite frankly cannot be proved or disproved until Winds comes out.

 

We have already seen how the Children raised the seas by melting the ice in the Lands of Always Winter with a volcano, and that this resulted in a reduction in the area of sea ice and a general global increase in temperature.

How would the Others have felt about this? From their point of view the Children of the Forest have just devastated their homeland to win a pointless war that the squirrel-people had already lost? You can understand them being aggrieved at that. The Others were just as affected by the Breaking as the humans.

After a (longish) period of time during which the Others regained their strength lost in the disaster and prepared for war, they swept south through Westeros in an effort to both cause global temperatures to fall and restore their icy habitats, and also to have their revenge on the Children (the humans being annoying collateral damage, only good for sourcing wights, at first).

 

I believe that the Others didn't really care about the humans much at first, their motive being solely to seek revenge on the Children. However, they would have needed footsoldiers in this war, and the First Men represented a huge resource pool in this regard. Thus they killed humans for the express purpose of turning them into wights to use in mass attacks against the Children. It was only when the First Men started fighting back with obsidian weaponry that the Others realised that the humans were a threat, and switched their primary focus to them.

We also don't even know if the Others did want to fight the humans at all. They may have been focused entirely on the Children. However the side-effects of their invasion (cold and darkness) led the humans to attack the Others, at which point the sides became enemies. While this is just speculation on my part I do want to point out that the Others would have been vilified by the humans whatever their original goal was: history is written by the victors after all.

 

This ties in quite nicely with my above theory, although I stress that it is more of an optional addition and not an ironclad component of it. It also correlates with a couple of my pet theories: 1) that the Others are not completely evil, even if they're not benign, and that it's the Children you need to watch instead/as well, and 2) that the Others cool areas of land just by being on it, so that if they expanded their domain over enough of the planet's surface, they would cool the whole globe. This would reduce sea levels by locking water back up into the ice caps.

 

Now, the reason for the Others' return. A few theories here:

• ·      For the past 8000 years or so they've been kept at bay by the volcano dampening their power. But what happens when that volcano starts to falter? The volcano is ceasing to erupt, becoming dormant. This gives the Others an opportunity to return to the world, to reclaim their right to all the lands north of the Wall (or even the whole North, or beyond?). The Children, safe in their warded cave, are still bound to help the humans due to the terms of the Pact. But their power is all but gone, and only a half dozen of them survive. What must the Children do to ensure the Others are kept back? In the past when this happened the Children would work their magic to stimulate an eruption again, but this time their lack of numbers precludes them from doing that. So the Children turn to the humans for help, co-opting the greenseer Bloodraven, and a century later Brandon Stark. Their mission: jolt the volcano out of its slumber before the Others kill them all. If they fail, then the world we experience a night unlike any before, as the seas fall and become cooler, bringing the whole globe's temperature down.

   

• ·      The Others are in league with the Children, and have made a deal: the Others will travel to the Isle of Faces where the spells governing the volcanic eruption are maintained. In doing so they shall devastate the North, leaving it free for the mammoths, giants and Children, while the Others take the Far North for themselves.. The Children will allow this because they want revenge on the humans, but don't have the power to take it themselves.

   

• ·      The Children's destruction of Hardhome damaged the fragile peace that the two races held, and now the Others are coming south for revenge. However it took the Others hundreds of years to grow (I like the word gestate) and it's only now that they have sufficient strength to accomplish their goal. They need humans as cannon fodder and as footsoldiers in their army as they sweep south to the Isle of Faces to disrupt the spells, end the eruption and repair their homeland. Note that the Children seem safe in their warded cave, but we don't know for sure if the wards will hold against Others, and also the magic protecting the cave and the magic influencing the volcano may be connected somehow.

   

• ·      The Others, like the rest of the Dawn Races, are dying. Now they have marshalled the last of their strength to sweep south in a last, desperate, glorious charge, in the almost certainly vain hope of ending the spells etc etc…

   

• ·      The end of the Targaryen reign left the primordial forces of Ice and Fire unbalanced, allowing the Others to sweep south and conquer more of Westeros for themselves.

   

Which of these explanations you prefer is up to you. They all have a few flaws, and I'm sure that some of you will come up with improvements upon them. My personal preferences are either 1 or 3; 4 and 5 are just ideas that I had and thought I may as well include.

 

 

 

Thank you all for reading this theory - I hope you liked it. I will try to respond to all comments.

 

 

 

[Lord Vance II]

Glad to see you stuck with it and honored to have a mention in such a thorough argument. 

My biggest sticking point with this is time. The children didn't have any. I think if the situation was dire enough to require them cutting continents apart, they just wouldn't have time for a volcano. Even a super volcano would need time to melt enough to rise sea levels worldwide enough to make enough difference to cover the Arm. Let's say its a doozie and can get the job done in five years...who knows how many thousands more men would cross over in that time? I think letting the sea wash over the Arm, even if they facilitated the erosion somehow (which I honestly think is pretty dubious) took time the Children did not have. 

Also, I'm not sure a super volcano would make enough ice melt. Here in reality, scientists say if ALL the ice on earth melted (both poles, continental glaciers) sea levels would rise by a max of 230 feet, probably enough to do what you say it would. However, this volcano would only be affecting one pole and apparently be contained enough for no living person to know things suddenly thaw out up north, not as legend but as fact. Their world does seem icier, but it would need an insane amount of melting, so much so that the wildlings would have to notice something. 

And a smaller geographic point, if the Arm was washed over and the Stepstones are a series of small mountains left above water, that would mean that previously they were seemingly random mountains across an isthmus, while Dorne and the Disputed lands don't appear to have any noteworthy topography. 

The breaking of the Arm and the Saltspear happening at the same time could explain why the Saltspear failed (split their power) but just doesn't sound right. If they thought one would work why try the other?

Your Hardhome volcanic eruption makes sense. My vote would be for a random, pompei-style cataclysm, not every natural phenomenon is unnatural on Westeros. And your guess as to why the Others chose now is as good as mine, but if there is a volcano, 1 could explain why they seem to just be piddling around north of the Wall. They could be waiting for it to die. 

Overall, don't agree but respect the hell out of the effort. 

[Maester of Valyria]

4 hours ago, Lord Vance II said:

Glad to see you stuck with it and honored to have a mention in such a thorough argument. 

Thank you; and you are very welcome: your topic was extremely engaging.

4 hours ago, Lord Vance II said:

My biggest sticking point with this is time. The children didn't have any. I think if the situation was dire enough to require them cutting continents apart, they just wouldn't have time for a volcano. Even a super volcano would need time to melt enough to rise sea levels worldwide enough to make enough difference to cover the Arm. Let's say its a doozie and can get the job done in five years...who knows how many thousands more men would cross over in that time? I think letting the sea wash over the Arm, even if they facilitated the erosion somehow (which I honestly think is pretty dubious) took time the Children did not have. 

This is certainly a sticking point. I think that if the volcano had erupted very violently in the first few years before subsiding a bit this would have resulted in the melting of large quantities of ice very quickly. Assuming that most of the Arm was very low-lying then it perhaps wouldn't take as long to submerge, or at least become impassable. I also believe that the Children did not perform the Breaking to stop the First Men from coming to Westeros (that battle was clearly already lost) but instead to shock them into submission.

4 hours ago, Lord Vance II said:

Also, I'm not sure a super volcano would make enough ice melt. Here in reality, scientists say if ALL the ice on earth melted (both poles, continental glaciers) sea levels would rise by a max of 230 feet, probably enough to do what you say it would. However, this volcano would only be affecting one pole and apparently be contained enough for no living person to know things suddenly thaw out up north, not as legend but as fact. Their world does seem icier, but it would need an insane amount of melting, so much so that the wildlings would have to notice something. 

Don't forget that we are talking about the extreme far north here, where very few humans live, and the ones who do presumably have very little contact with civilisation south of the Wall. It is plausible that if any wildlings did observe the changes the Night's Watch still didn't hear of it (or they did and they've just forgotten over time). Also, most of the reduction in polar ice would be from the underside of the ice cap, while the warmer waters prevented the White Waste expanding to its full extent next winter (which would be a more gradual and less noticeable process). The First Men had no Maesters to observe polar ice.

4 hours ago, Lord Vance II said:

And a smaller geographic point, if the Arm was washed over and the Stepstones are a series of small mountains left above water, that would mean that previously they were seemingly random mountains across an isthmus, while Dorne and the Disputed lands don't appear to have any noteworthy topography. 

The breaking of the Arm and the Saltspear happening at the same time could explain why the Saltspear failed (split their power) but just doesn't sound right. If they thought one would work why try the other?

There is a small chain of hills in Dorne leading up to the Broken Arm on the Known World map. Also, when I said 'higher elevation' I did not mean to imply that they were the size of mountains, just largish islands.

Remember that the Children did not use their power to accomplish the Breaking of the Arm and attempted Snapping of the Neck: they used their power to cause the volcano to erupt, and then let nature take its course. There are many natural reasons why the Neck did not submerge, some of which I mentioned above.

4 hours ago, Lord Vance II said:

Your Hardhome volcanic eruption makes sense. My vote would be for a random, pompei-style cataclysm, not every natural phenomenon is unnatural on Westeros. And your guess as to why the Others chose now is as good as mine, but if there is a volcano, 1 could explain why they seem to just be piddling around north of the Wall. They could be waiting for it to die. 

Glad you like it! I was rather pleased with those two bits of extrapolation from the main theory.

4 hours ago, Lord Vance II said:

Overall, don't agree but respect the hell out of the effort.

Thank you once again for your contribution and your appraisal

[House Cambodia]

I like it a DAMNED lot! Well the first part, not the second.

A Krakatoan-like volcanic eruption somewhere in the Lands of Always Winter - your evidence is good. I'm tempted to buy into it. I do think there was a massive natural(ish) cataclysm and maybe your volcano is a better theory than an exploding moon. 

I've been working on a hypothesis myself and I find I can incorporate a lot of what both you and LVII say without any contradiction.

Rather than clog up your thread, I'll post a link to mine. The updated ideas which include your theories will be in the latest post.

 

The Endgame - a thought

[Maester of Valyria]

7 hours ago, House Cambodia said:

I like it a DAMNED lot! Well the first part, not the second.

A Krakatoan-like volcanic eruption somewhere in the Lands of Always Winter - your evidence is good. I'm tempted to buy into it. I do think there was a massive natural(ish) cataclysm and maybe your volcano is a better theory than an exploding moon. 

I've been working on a hypothesis myself and I find I can incorporate a lot of what both you and LVII say without any contradiction.

Rather than clog up your thread, I'll post a link to mine. The updated ideas which include your theories will be in the latest post.

 

The Endgame - a thought

Many thanks! I look forward to reading!

[Lord Vance II]

On 6/7/2016 at 1:42 PM, Maester of Valyria said:

I also believe that the Children did not perform the Breaking to stop the First Men from coming to Westeros (that battle was clearly already lost) but instead to shock them into submission.

Well if they're going for shock value, a gradual sea level rise over the course of years would be the last thing that would accomplish that. I'd be kind of surprised if the First Men would even believe the CoTF if they claimed responsibility for it to them. 

[Maester of Valyria]

22 hours ago, Lord Vance II said:

Well if they're going for shock value, a gradual sea level rise over the course of years would be the last thing that would accomplish that. I'd be kind of surprised if the First Men would even believe the CoTF if they claimed responsibility for it to them. 

I believe that the sea level rise was extremely rapid: you wouldn't have been able to see the waters rising, but there'd be a difference between when you went to bed and when you woke up in the morning. It's still pretty shocking for your town to be flooded within a month, rather than within an hour.

[The Sword of the Evening]

Great post. Enjoyed it alot.

Regarding the Others' return, the timeline seems to match up with Bloodraven's disappearance beyond the Wall.

[House Cambodia]

Here is more evidence for prior volcanic activity and climate change, thanks to input from another poster:

The God's Eye with its Isle of Faces is a crater lake formation typical of a particular kind of volcanic eruption. Since ash and lava eventually break down into nutrients that greatly enrich the soil, the high fertility of the Riverlands (plus proximity to the God's Eye) could be another indication of prehistoric volcanic activity.

We also know that the Long Night was followed by the 'Dry Times' in Essos. The Silver Sea dried up and the region east of the Bones experienced considerable desertification as well. The prolonged presence of volcanic ash in the atmosphere can explain this change in climate as well. Volcanoes fling massive amounts of ash into the atmosphere, which drifts into the stratosphere where chemicals within the ash (mainly bromine and chlorine) destroy the ozone layer, ozone depletion in turn leading to global warming and associated effects including a reduction in fertility of the land in affected areas of the planet. This can occur far off from the point of origin.

The chemicals associated with volcanic ash can also pollute surface waters - perhaps Blackwater Bay, the Winterfell pool and the Womb of the World are examples. I'm also thinking of Asshai. The name of this place Ash), its description, the poisonous waters of River Ash and the region's inability to sustain life. 

[Maester of Valyria]

19 hours ago, The Sword of the Evening said:

Great post. Enjoyed it alot.

Regarding the Others' return, the timeline seems to match up with Bloodraven's disappearance beyond the Wall.

Thanks, I'm glad!

That's an interesting point: I'll see if I can fit it in to the theory.

 

11 hours ago, House Cambodia said:

The God's Eye with its Isle of Faces is a crater lake formation typical of a particular kind of volcanic eruption. Since ash and lava eventually break down into nutrients that greatly enrich the soil, the high fertility of the Riverlands (plus proximity to the God's Eye) could be another indication of prehistoric volcanic activity.

I lean towards seeing the God's Eye as a glacial formation, rather than a volcanic one. There's a very interesting topic that I was recently engaged in here that goes into quite a lot of detail on the subject. The Riverland's fertility is well explained by fluvial deposits enriching the soils, without any need for recourse to volcanism.

I know that it's often tempting to see volcanism in everything, but it's important not to discount other possibilities first!

11 hours ago, House Cambodia said:

We also know that the Long Night was followed by the 'Dry Times' in Essos. The Silver Sea dried up and the region east of the Bones experienced considerable desertification as well. The prolonged presence of volcanic ash in the atmosphere can explain this change in climate as well. Volcanoes fling massive amounts of ash into the atmosphere, which drifts into the stratosphere where chemicals within the ash (mainly bromine and chlorine) destroy the ozone layer, ozone depletion in turn leading to global warming and associated effects including a reduction in fertility of the land in affected areas of the planet. This can occur far off from the point of origin.

I confess I hadn't thought of it like that. However I recommend 'On Asshai, Rivers, and Oceans', which I've mentioned above. It postulates a very convincing cause of the Dry Times, related to the Breaking.

11 hours ago, House Cambodia said:

The chemicals associated with volcanic ash can also pollute surface waters - perhaps Blackwater Bay, the Winterfell pool and the Womb of the World are examples. I'm also thinking of Asshai. The name of this place Ash), its description, the poisonous waters of River Ash and the region's inability to sustain life. 

I've often thought that the Shadowlands displayed signs of volcanism. Thanks for pointing this out to me; I plan to do a write-up of this at some point!

However the other examples you mentioned are unlikely to be polluted by volcanic ash. For one thing we know that you can fish in Blackwater Bay, and the effects of ash on the sea are relatively short term anyway. I'm not sure if we're given enough evidence one way or the other on the Winterfell pool (I hope it's a dead ice dragon!) and the Womb of the World.

[House Cambodia]

I'm inclined to see hot springs like that at Winterfell and unfrozen lakes in the far north as similar to Yellowstone Park or Iceland.

[Darth Sidious]

I agree with the idea of rising sea levels as the cause of the land bridge ending beneath the water rather than the power of the children.  If the Children had the power of such magnitude, the primitive First Men would have lost the war.  Much of the events though are results of shifting climate patterns.  An ice age would cause sea levels to drop and the land bridge to become passable again.  It also makes possible for the Others and their wights to advance southwards.  That is the simple reason why the Others are on the move.  The cold weather permits them. 

[The Sword of the Evening]

9 hours ago, Maester of Valyria said:

Thanks, I'm glad!

That's an interesting point: I'll see if I can fit it in to the theory.

For sure. I plan on reading the other theory (in your signature) later when I have time.

Regarding the return of the Others, people have posted numerous theories involving the birth of dragons, the comet, etc. but none of them fit imo because of the effect on the wildlings.

Here is some good information on it that you could use:

 

Now we don’t know exactly when the Others began their aggression (the show puts Mance gathering the wildlings for southern migration at 20 years, but we can’t necessarily take that as gospel). We have pretty good reason to believe that the free folk began feeling an immediate and impending threat at some point which required them to migrate south, and this happened before the actual return of dragons, before there were no more Starks in Winterfell, and before the red comet most recently showed itself. That said, the last major wildling invasion before out story was by then King-Beyond-the-Wall Raymun Redbeard around 72 years before the start of the story, and that seemingly was as a result of the dwindling Night’s Watch, and so the return of the Others as a threat likely occurred after that, since Mance had to unite the Wildlings again. So, the Others didn’t start coming back when the Hardhome tragedy occurred 600 years ago (in the books this was a different tragedy involving fire), or when dragons came to Westeros with Aegon the Conqueror 300 years ago, or when the Nightfort and Snowgate were abandoned and first night was abolished in the North during the reign of Good Queen Alysanne, or even when the dragons died in Westeros around 150 years before the story begins. Whatever brought them back, they didn’t actually start coming back till some point in the last 72 years. So what awoke them? What made them start coming south? Could Bloodraven and the Children of the Forest get the Others to invade? Well the timeline certainly fits.

The timeline indicates the return of the Others seemingly coincides with Bloodraven’s disappearance, as they don’t seem to have come back around any major events prior to that, and all of the major events in our story in the last 72 years which could believably concern them seem to be after Bloodraven took the Weirwood throne. Furthermore, considering we know Craster and the Others have an arrangement where he supplies them with children, the 48 years since Bloodraven’s disappearance also fit with the apparent age of Craster. Though the possibility that Bloodraven began working his scheme because he saw the Other’s coming exists, there is seemingly no event in the 30 some years before his disappearance while still after the last wildling invasion, which would bring the Others. If Bloodraven had seen the White Walkers beginning to gather their forces while he was Lord Commander, you’d think he would send word to Aegon V. (yes that is the King who exiled him, but that should not have stopped him from warning the realm. Yet Aegon the Unlikely seem hell bent on bringing back dragons to enforce pro small folk reforms. It appears Aegon V wasn’t warned of the Others.

Furthermore, though the Others appear an inherently hostile and ominous force, we have to bear in mind thatthe Others have kept to their side of the wall for thousands of years when our story begins, and neither the comings nor going to men or dragons in Westeros seems to have provoked them south as of yet. In fact, historically there is zero evidence of the Other’s gathering forces to march south at any time after the Long Night, so we don’t have any actual indication that there are any expansionist tendencies or southward manifest destiny among wight walkers. They seem to have started their aggression only during Bloodraven’s reign as the last greenseer.

 

This is from: https://weirwoodleviathan.wordpress.com/2015/11/11/ii-bloodraven-and-the-greatest-evil-2/

[Neptunium]

Great post! I cringed a bit when you starting talking about volcanoes, but then I saw it's very well thought out!

 

One idea I'd like to throw out there: the Children need not necessarily caused the volcano to erupt, but they could have forseen it and taken credit for it. 

Daenys the Dreamer saw the Doom of Valyria. If the Children had forseen the eruption, they might have claimed that they would raise the sea if the First Men didn't surrender (similar to Melisandre taking credit for the deaths of Renly, Geoffrey and Robb).

Or they could have simply very suspisciously abandoned the coastline before the sea levels rose, and the First Men drew false conclusions.

[Maester of Valyria]

On 12/06/2016 at 4:21 PM, House Cambodia said:

I'm inclined to see hot springs like that at Winterfell and unfrozen lakes in the far north as similar to Yellowstone Park or Iceland.

Yes, in the sense that all those examples are a result of geothermal activity. I've often thought there were similarities between Iceland and Thenn actually, given that in both locations volcanic heat allows a level of development that would otherwise be impossible.

 

21 hours ago, The Sword of the Evening said:

For sure. I plan on reading the other theory (in your signature) later when I have time.

Regarding the return of the Others, people have posted numerous theories involving the birth of dragons, the comet, etc. but none of them fit imo because of the effect on the wildlings.

Here is some good information on it that you could use:

SNIP

This is from: https://weirwoodleviathan.wordpress.com/2015/11/11/ii-bloodraven-and-the-greatest-evil-2/

Feel free too, although be aware that it is just a first draft to this one, going into considerably less depth and introducing fewer ideas.

That's all very interesting information: I confess that I hadn't factored Bloodraven in to my mental musings yet. I explained the delay with the time that the Others needed to gestate (or whatever they do), but I will be sure to read more into Bloodraven, and hopefully include him in a future edition of this theory!

 

16 hours ago, Neptunium said:

Great post! I cringed a bit when you starting talking about volcanoes, but then I saw it's very well thought out!

 

One idea I'd like to throw out there: the Children need not necessarily caused the volcano to erupt, but they could have forseen it and taken credit for it. 

Daenys the Dreamer saw the Doom of Valyria. If the Children had forseen the eruption, they might have claimed that they would raise the sea if the First Men didn't surrender (similar to Melisandre taking credit for the deaths of Renly, Geoffrey and Robb).

Or they could have simply very suspisciously abandoned the coastline before the sea levels rose, and the First Men drew false conclusions.

Thank you! I did worry that some people might just give up at that point, but I'm glad that doesn't seem to be the case!

That is an extremely intriguing idea there; I hadn't considered that. This theory is still a work in progress! 

While of course this could be possible I personally prefer the view that the Children did influence the volcano in some way, for the reasons that it would fit better with them turning out to not be the innocent little elf-creatures that Bran thinks they are, and because it fits in well with my Other musings. Nonetheless, I will do some more research and include this possibility in a future write-up!

[Maester of Valyria]

On 12/06/2016 at 8:45 PM, Lord High Papal said:

I agree with the idea of rising sea levels as the cause of the land bridge ending beneath the water rather than the power of the children.  If the Children had the power of such magnitude, the primitive First Men would have lost the war.  Much of the events though are results of shifting climate patterns.  An ice age would cause sea levels to drop and the land bridge to become passable again.  It also makes possible for the Others and their wights to advance southwards.  That is the simple reason why the Others are on the move.  The cold weather permits them. 

Sorry it's taken me a few days to get back to you.

I do think that the First Men did in effect lose the initial war: when they saw the extent of the Children's power they surrendered. However the Children allowed the First Men to continue living in Westeros, and the continued human expansion drove the Children further and further into isolation. This meant that the histories eventually came to reflect a First Men victory, as there were no Children to claim otherwise. The First Men did win the long war of history, but they lost the first war of conquest.

Interesting point about the Others, but I think that all the evidence and hints point to something prompting them to come south now. Apart from anything else, there have been long and cruel winters before: why did they not invade then?

[RobbTheBoss]

It is clear that the two continents were linked in past, just like Europe and North America. But that was probably millions of years ago.

If a volcano caused sufficient ice to melt (impossible, but it is fantasy after all), wouldn’t this volcano cool? The water would freeze again and the Dorne would again connect to Essos.

[Maester of Valyria]

On 02/07/2016 at 4:38 PM, RobbTheBoss said:

It is clear that the two continents were linked in past, just like Europe and North America. But that was probably millions of years ago.

 

If a volcano caused sufficient ice to melt (impossible, but it is fantasy after all), wouldn’t this volcano cool? The water would freeze again and the Dorne would again connect to Essos.

 

Westeros and Essos were almost certainly linked in the relatively recent past by the Arm of Dorne, which was broken a few thousand years ago by the Children.

 

I believe that the volcano would have erupted furiously for a short period, melting large amounts of ice in the process, and then ceased to be so violent but continued to give out lava. This would have prevented the polar ice cap from reforming to it's fullest extent. An undersea volcano on the order of Yellowstone continually erupting for thousands of years (as opposed to a short, sharp eruption lasting a shorter period of time) would have the potential to significantly alter sea temperatures.

And then, it is fantasy after all!